Title: Equinox
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: The travelers reflect on the meaning of seasons.
Author's Notes: This was a short piece I wrote when I was trying out the 'voices' of the Tsubasa characters for the first time, and it has no real meaning or content.
It quickly became impossible to keep track of time. It ought to have been a simple matter of counting days, subjective time; after all, seven days would add up to a week, and four weeks to a month, and eventually three hundred and sixty-five days would signify one year. As simple as that.
But it wasn't that simple, of course; even leaving aside the days which were so frenzied and hectic that all sense of attention to time keeping was lost, or the days in some worlds that could pass without ever seeing a sun to mark them, there were the days when they would move to another world and evening would turn to noon, winter to summer, new moon to full. There was no point to keeping track of days and weeks when the months and the seasons of the year shifted back and forth at random on them, and all four of them quickly tired of the effort of trying.
The disorientation was gaining on them, the loss of the fundamental rhythms of the sun and the moon, the turning of the weather and the world. This last shift had brought them from a chill, wet woodland into the high blazing sun of summer heat, and they hadn't had a chance to trade in their heavy woolens of the last world for anything more comfortable.
Sakura was wilting and pale in the heat, Fai had already developed a sunburn, Syaoran was flushed and miserable, and Kurogane, dressed all in black as usual, was the worst off. Even in the shade of this roadside overhang, where they'd all stopped to wait out the heat of noon, he was massively overheated. "Summer one moment and winter the next," he snarled to no one in particular, "and I don't know which is worse."
Mokona tilted its ears curiously to the side, riding on Fai's shoulder; as usual it seemed unaffected by any conditions around them. "Is this winter, then?" the creature chirped.
"What? No! This is summer, you stupid critter!" Kurogane snapped in reply, then leveled and incredulous glare on Mokona. "Don't you know anything about the seasons?"
"Mokona knows about a lot of things!" it replied indignantly. "But Mokona never saw the outside world before, except for this journey. So Mokona doesn't know what seasons are like."
"Really?" Sakura raised her head to stare at Mokona, green eyes wide with astonishment. "You don't know about seasons, Moko-chan? That's so sad!"
"It's not sad!" Mokona bounced from Fai's shoulder to Sakura's. "Because now Mokona gets to go on a journey with all of you, and learn about all sorts of things. What season does Sakura-chan like the best?"
"Oh..." Distractedly, Sakura pushed dark, brimmed hat away from her face, letting it fall away from her sweat-dampened hair. "I guess... I like spring the best!"
This came as a surprise to no one. Her demeanor brightening at the thought of it, Sakura sat up a little straighter as she went on, "It's always so hopeful, don't you think? Spring is the time that all the new animal babies come out, the ones who haven't learned to be afraid of anything yet. And the plants, too -- all winter long they've been sleeping, but then the sun wakes them up. It's just a time when everyone is feeling so much joy."
She stopped, looking slightly embarrassed at having said so much, and then looked shyly over at Syaoran. "What season do you like best, Syaoran-kun?"
"Oh, I like the summer best!" Syaoran asserted, and at Kurogane's incredulous look, he grinned sheepishly. "I mean, I don't like it when it's too hot to move, of course. But summer is always the best season for traveling. The days are so long -- it feels like the light can last forever, and even during the night something's always going on. You can visit so many places and meet so many people, during the summer travel season."
"Mokona likes meeting new people too!" Mokona chirped, and jumped from Sakura's shoulder to Syaoran's. "What about Kurogane? What does he like best?"
Kurogane could tell by the glances the kids were stealing at him that they'd been dying to ask, too, but were too shy. It seemed unnecessarily pissy to refuse. "Autumn," he said, and that was all. Something in his expression must have warned the kids not to pester him further.
Autumn was when the harvest festivals were held, in Nihon; for a solid week around the turning of the leaves the capital would hum with the feverish energy of the peasants as they finished bringing their harvest in for the winter, secured safely in the granaries and warehouses behind the heavy stone walls. And once the harvest was fully in, of course, through all three days of the harvest moon there would be celebration. Not that Kurogane would ever go to those, of course; he had a duty to stay in the castle and a princess to protect. Nevertheless, on those nights, with the moon lighting up the crisp chill air and the cheers ringing up from the lantern-lit city below, it would remind Kurogane of how very much there was to fight for.
He stared out from their narrow shade, not seeing the bright sandy waste; instead, he saw the bright red drifts of the maple trees in autumn, outlining the crip black crenellations of the castle; yellow and red leaves coming down in a shower, scattering bright geometric patterns on the cooling surface of the moat. The images were so strong, even in this stifling dusty heat, that he felt the intense longing clutch him around the throat. Damn, I need to go home.
"What about you, Fai-san?" Sakura was asking, and the turn of the conversation abruptly brought Kurogane back to the present. "You're the only one who hasn't said."
"Hmm," Fai said, and smiled. "That's a hard question, Sakura-chan!"
"It can't be too hard," Sakura protested. "Surely you must have one season that you like the best."
"Well, I don't know," the mage said, and put his chin in his hand, pretending to ponder the question. "Hmmmm... maybe I like spring best, it's so pretty. But then again, the fall has fresh fruit, so that's pretty nice as well. Or maybe the summer. It's just so hard to say!"
There was a short silence, and then Syaoran broke in to say, "Really? I, um... For some reason, I thought you would say you liked the winter best, Fai-san."
"Winter? Oh, no," Fai said, and laughed. "I hate the winter, more than anything. I hate being cold."
"But," Sakura said, and she looked confused. "Didn't you, Fai, I thought... isn't the country you come from very cold? I thought... the coat you had when you first arrived, and..."
"Yes, I suppose it was," Fai said carelessly, and leaned back propped on his elbows in the shade, head tilted towards the sky. Then he looked down and saw the confused and distressed looks on the kids' faces, and laughed again. "I guess you could say I was just miserable there every day!"
Syaoran and Sakura laughed along with him, infectiously; and Kurogane was seized with a sudden uncharitable urge to box them both over the ears. He was very fond of them both, in various ways, but he really did just wish they would stop being so... suggestible. Stop and listen for a moment, will you? he wanted to yell at them. Stop being fooled by the easy smiles and listen to what he's actually saying behind them for once! And what he wasn't saying.
"It's strange to me, too," Kurogane said suddenly, although he hadn't actually planned to participate in this conversation at all, "that you say you hate winter. You remind me of winter an awful lot."
He did, too, in a lot of ways. His coloring was all winter; his eyes the blue of the sky reflecting off snow, his hair the pale yellow of a weak winter sun. But more than anything it was his smile, that made Kurogane think of the sun glittering off a winter snowscape. Beautiful, yes, dazzling and beautiful, but under the delicate layer of frost, the trees and plants were cold and dead, just waiting for the chance to fall over when the sun disappeared.
Fai pushed himself up onto his hands, staring across at Kurogane, and a flicker of some other expression chased across his face before it was replaced by a merry smile. "What a mean thing to compare me to, Kuro-pon," he said lightly. "Whatever makes you say that?"
"No reason," Kurogane grunted, and looked away.
The sun was past its zenith, and it had already become much cooler.
~end.